


I Will Come to You at Nighttime (or, That Time in Montana)

by fits_in_frames



Series: Throw Your Arms Around Me [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-03
Updated: 2006-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1556129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fits_in_frames/pseuds/fits_in_frames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Dad left Dean alone overnight with Sam was the night before Sam's first day of kindergarten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Come to You at Nighttime (or, That Time in Montana)

**Author's Note:**

> _i will come to you at nighttime_  
>  _i will climb into your bed_  
>  {hunters and collectors (via eddie vedder) // throw your arms around me}  
> 

The first time Dad left Dean alone overnight with Sam was the night before Sam's first day of kindergarten. They'd been living in a one-room shack just outside Butte for three weeks. It wasn't much--two twin beds in the back (one for Sam, one for Dean) and a cot near the door (for Dad), a rickety table and four folding chairs (just in case, he always reminded himself, Mom decided to come visit). The stove didn't work, so Dad did most of the cooking on an ancient hot plate from his college days; the tap was clogged, so Dad filled jugs of water in the well down the road; and there was no refrigerator, so Dad bought milk in tiny boxes every morning, only as much as the boys could drink in one day. Dean knew all this because Dad told him the first time he left for the day; tonight, he'd come to Dean and told him there was a lock box underneath Sam's bed where he kept all the cash, and wrote down the combination on the back of an old, crumpled receipt. _While I'm gone,_ he'd said, _Sam is your responsibility._ Dean responded that he knew that, and he'd take care of him just the same as always.

After TV dinners and scrubbing Sam's face with an old washcloth and cold water from a jug, Dean told him to go to bed, while he washed the forks and put out the trash. When he'd done that, he checked underneath the rusty sink: the shotgun was still there. He took it out, made sure it was loaded, put it back together, and stored it under the sink again.

The light was still on in the bedroom when he came in, Sam sitting up, half-under the covers, knees at his chest.

"I told you to go to bed, Sammy," Dean said, throwing back his covers and slipping under them. He turned off the light and curled up, facing the wall, away from Sam.

"Sorry," Sam said, rustled for a moment, and then was silent.

After a few minutes, just enough time for Dean to get comfortable on the lumpy mattress, Sam called into the darkness, "Dean?"

He rubbed his eye and half-turned over. Sam did this almost every night. _Dean, I'm thirsty_ or _Dean, I'm cold_ or _Dean, I'm hungry_ or even, once, _Dean, I'm itchy_. But he always responded--always--because Dad had to sleep when he could and Sammy's petty complaints weren't worth losing ten minutes. "What, Sam?"

"I'm scared," Sam said.

Dean's heart lept in his chest and he turned fully to face Sam, who had the thin cotton sheets clasped in both hands, right near his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment--a brief second, not too long or he'd fall fast asleep--and remembered what Dad had said, crouching down, just before he had left: _And if Sammy asks if there's anything in the dark, you tell him no. I know you've seen things and heard things, but you don't know anything about them and I don't want you getting him all psyched out. He's got a big day tomorrow._ And then, almost as an afterthought, he stood up and patted him on the head and said, _I'm prouda you, Dean._

"Don't be scared, Sammy," he said, just the way he'd rehearsed it in his head a thousand times that night. "I'll protect you."

"Can I sleep in your bed tonight?" The words were foreign to both of them (Sam would never ask Dad such a thing, and Dean had never even thought to), but they were as natural as anything else that'd been said already.

He thought for a beat, and then said, "Yeah, all right." He scooted backwards to the edge of the bed and Sam lifted up the covers and swung himself up on to the bed, snuggling back into Dean.

"What's it like, Dean?" Sam asked as soon as he'd settled down.

"What's what like, Sam?" Dean's stomach sank to his knees. He had no idea what Sam was going to say, but he was terrified it would be, _Going out in the woods with Dad all the time._

"School." It wasn't. Dean puffed a sigh of relief.

He'd seen the one-room schoolhouse earlier in the day when Dad had taken them grocery shopping. It didn't look too horrendous; in fact, it looked better than the parish school Dean had started at in Missouri four years earlier. "It's not bad. Look, we'll all be in the same room, so you just stick by me, okay? I'll take care of you."

"Okay," Sam said, and burrowed himself deeper into the mattress, his bony hips digging into Dean's stomach, and instantly fell asleep. Dean, who had not been blessed with an on-off switch, and who was not yet awkward with touching his brother (he would be in two years, but for now, it was a fact of life), snaked his arms around Sam in an awkward hug, then turned over so they were back to back, and eventually fell asleep.

The sound of the front door opening woke him, and Sammy was gone. His heart raced until he turned on the light and saw his younger brother back in his own bed. Dad walked over, dripping wet and smiling, and whispered, "I'm sorry I startled you. Go back to sleep." He glanced at Sam and turned off the light. Dean stared at Sammy for a good minute or so, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, then curled up under his sheets, which were still unfamiliarly warm in the space of two boys instead of one, and tried to fall asleep again. He didn't.


End file.
